


An Unfamiliar Wanting

by onamaewa



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: (I guess????), Cunnilingus, F/F, Fingering, First Time, PWP, mild xeno, no beta we die like Tiso
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:15:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26783536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onamaewa/pseuds/onamaewa
Summary: Hornet and Lace find time and curiosity while alone together.
Relationships: Hornet/Lace (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	An Unfamiliar Wanting

In a disused annex to a tower on the outskirts beyond the citadel, shielded from the unseeing eyes of cult and citizenry alike, both former foes still spoke low and hushed, as if those outside the walls might hear.

"So you'd wish to try this now, little spider? I won't deny you've chosen a fair time and place, but I hadn't expected a proposition from one so... dedicated." Lace curled her claws around Hornet's shoulder. A moment's malice could have dug them into the soft gaps of her throat, but no callous grip arrived to spoil the touch of Lace's hand against her carapace.

"I've little experience in such matters, but I won't deny I've thought of it. Frequently, since we've become travel companions." Hornet fidgeted with the hilt of her needle, running her claws along the familiar metal. "I merely wished to raise the possibility, and discern your degree of interest."

"Oh," Lace told her, a lilt of song on her tongue, "don't worry about that. I assure you, your desire is requited. I'm a curious creature myself, I suppose you could say." She paused, thoughtful. "And a hungry one, too. As for the deed, I'm quite willing to attempt it -- here and now, if you're so inclined."

Hornet, flustered, went very still, as if she had become some sort of prey-creature attempting to blend with her surroundings. How unbecoming, she thought -- she swiftly shook herself free of it, and schooled her posture into something worthier of a proper warrior. Lace may have become an unexpected ally, but the urge to hide any weakness in front of her remained. "Should I take your hunger as metaphor? Or am I to fend you off from devouring me after, once we've finished?"

Raised through her youngest years in the heart of Deepnest, Hornet was not unfamiliar with this concept-- the impulse to bite and consume one's mate was an urge most spiders learned to suppress. Their species had since grown beyond the short and quick-burning lifespans of ancestors concerned with little more than mating and dying to feed the next generation. But Lace only laughed.

"Oh, not at all. I may have meant it, you know, when I first called you _delicious_ , but I've no such troublesome instincts myself! My hunger is of a more... particular variety."

Hornet turned those words over in her mind a moment before deciding she could make no sense of them, and instead leaned, almost casually, into Lace's easy grip. "I see no trouble, then. Unless there's some other key matter of which you've failed to warn me." She nearly hesitated a moment, stumbling over the invitation. "If not, then-- that is, ah-- shall we begin?"

"Oh, little spider," hummed Lace, placing one warm hand over Hornet's cheek. "I feared you'd never ask."

***

"You say you've little experience," Lace commented, as she doffed her silken vestments with an abrupt and almost graceless motion that took Hornet by surprise. They had both bathed, briefly, in the sheltered spring Hornet had discovered downstairs, and the sight of what lay beneath the silk already seemed busily attempting to seduce her. "How little?"

She tensed, feeling herself grow flushed beneath her shell as she pulled the collar of her cloak over her horns. "...I was born into a dying kingdom, and constrained by duty since before I understood the word. I found neither spare time nor partners in abundant supply."

"Shall I take that to mean none?" Lace teased. Hornet turned her gaze to the wall for a moment before answering.

"... none," she agreed, at last. "Though I was informed on some of the simpler concepts, educationally."

"Educationally, you say? We'll have to test that, then."

Lace, now bare, sidled up to Hornet as she set her cloak aside and wrapped an arm around her, pressed up to her and nestled Hornet's leg between her own pair. She laid a claw, almost gentle, on Hornet's abdomen, tracing along the joint of her hip to where her parts would sit, recessed beneath an innocuous bit of plating between her legs. Hornet shivered as a strange and unsettling sort of thrill ran through her, at the thought of another touching her somewhere so unfamiliarly vulnerable.

"Hmm." Lace's claws ghosted in slow curves around the edges of the plating, only barely dipping into the space beneath. "Curious. I didn't expect it would be quite there."

"Is it... not typically in such a place?" Hornet's knowledge may have been limited, by time and circumstance, but she had not thought this aspect of herself so unusual. A nagging feeling suggested that whatever it was, her sire was to blame.

Lace tilted her head. "On the spiders I've seen, such receptacles sat higher, on the front of the abdomen. Though I suppose, between your limbs and the heritage you've hinted at, you're hardly an ordinary spider."

"Do I wish to know how you've encountered such sights?" Hornet asked, a little wary. The fate of the kingdom's weavers had proven an obscure thread to follow, but what little she had gleaned since arriving hinted at a miserable picture she had only yet failed to uncover.

(She nearly brushed aside the stirring inside her, stoked by Lace's tone. Hornet had long since known she was something _other_ , but never before had the description sounded so peculiarly reverent.)

"That's a story for another time, I think." Lace circled her claws with a little more pressure, sliding along the shallow channel up into the side of Hornet's left entrance, and drawing forth a surprised little gasp. Hornet had touched herself a few times before, exploring through her frozen adolescence in Hallownest's stasis, but Lace's claws on her were an entirely different creature, and the stirring feeling seemed to rise to meet her touch.

After a moment longer, Lace slowed, and beckoned Hornet to follow her as she stepped back toward a messy bundle of unraveled silk heaped on the floor. The empty bobbin lay nearby, tipped on its side. Lace had not laid her clothes on the ground, no doubt unwilling to dirty them so obviously, and Hornet's cloak would hardly make a comfortable cushion with all the sharp odds and ends lining her pockets, but the discarded thread and the plain earthen floor were both plenty welcoming. Hornet had certainly slept on worse.

Lace lowered herself down into the pile, and Hornet followed.

The two sat face-to-face, and Lace laid her legs over Hornet's, clasping her waist between them, drawing their bodies closer together. "I've ideas for how to proceed," Lace told her, voice low and anticipatory, "but don't be afraid to tell me if you'd like anything different."

Hornet felt another rush of heat run through her, both grateful for and strangely delighted by the thought of Lace taking the lead, yet still embarrassed. It was a very particular sort of embarrassment, one she had felt often in Pharloom -- the feeling of discovering yet another essential skill of this land she did not know, finding herself no longer the fearsome warrior perfectly adapted to survive, but a naive student, her skill stagnant from an eternity unchanging.

"I would be... pleased, to follow along," she said at last. "Where would you have me begin? Shall I attempt to-- _Oh!_ "

Hornet straightened sharply like she'd been shocked, tensing without space to think, as she felt Lace's claws enter her from both sides. The points of Lace's claw-tips pressed into her, gently squeezing at the bridge between the openings, and Hornet did not quite have the presence of mind to respond amid the waves of newfound pleasure.

"Hmm. Do you like this, little spider?" Lace drew herself in close to breathe the words at Hornet's cheek.

Hornet gathered her thoughts enough to answer, almost dazed. "Yes. Continue."

Lace slowed, her claws lighter now, almost teasing. "Will you say please?"

"Please, Lace. I implore you, _continue_."

This earned a giggle, and Hornet could feel the puff of air from it on her shoulders. "Oh, what a polite creature you are. And eager, too!"

The next moment, Lace had pressed deeper than before, nearly to her knuckles. Hornet gasped again, almost crying out from pleasure, surprising herself -- she had never felt the need to before, when experimenting with herself alone, but she had never experienced _this_ on those occasions, either.

The press of Lace's claws slid in and out, now, clenching and unclenching, exploring her in an alien and wonderful way. When she slowed again, letting the motion ebb to a slow flick and twitch inside her, Hornet had to bite back a pang of disappointment. The feeling didn't fade entirely, though, awoken and not yet returned to slumber. Something pulsed beneath her carapace, wanting, all the more in need of something _inside_ her.

"You've stopped," Hornet observed, still a little slow, as if lightheaded.

Lace nodded. "Would you like to take a turn at this yourself? I'm not the easiest to please, but you've long seemed the sort to rise to a challenge."

"Oh," said Hornet. She sat a little straighter, struggling now between that comfortable haze and the need to be aware and alert. "Of course. As your... student, in this act, I await your instruction."

"Right." Lace smiled, sharp-edged benevolence in her eyes. (Good. It wouldn't be her, if she was entirely gentle.) She shifted to spread her legs wider apart, exposing a slit between them, which she directed Hornet's attention to with a tapping claw. "Do you see this, here?"

Hornet bent closer to inspect it. "... I do."

"Try touching it," Lace instructed. "With your claws, or your mouth."

Her mouth... ? Hornet hadn't considered the idea of doing so herself, before, but she hadn't been taught about using her claws to touch in this way, either. She bent forward, but the thought of placing her head in Lace's lap still whispered _danger_ for a moment, however faintly, and she chose to begin with her hands instead, gingerly stroking one claw down the center of the slit. "Like this?"

"Yes, that's a start," Lace told her, resting her warm hand on Hornet's hip. "Try going harder, though. I'm not a delicate thread, about to snap the moment I'm touched improperly."

Hornet wriggled her claw into Lace's slit, sliding around a bit, hooking into the edges to pull a little at the top of the seam. Lace twitched, abruptly, and rewarded her with a satisfied little sigh.

"Oh, closer, but not quite..."

Emboldened, Hornet leaned in, bracing her hands at Lace's waist, and set her mask against Lace's thigh to place her mouthparts at her slit. Lace pushed herself onto her, humming in approval, and Hornet dared to poke into the entrance, feeling around it and using her pedipalps to draw it open, slipping inside.

There was something about the act she couldn't help seeing some irony in. From her memory of what little she had been taught about mating, this was typically the male's role, at least for her own species. (Well, her _mother's_ species. She could not say the same for the other half of her parentage, and she did not really want to ruin the moment thinking about him.)

In a welcome distraction, Lace scooped one hand around Hornet's horns, which now lay at a low angle against her back as she nestled her face at Lace's legs, and gripped the base as if to brace herself. "Keep going," she urged her. "You might unravel me yet!"

Experimentally, Hornet tried sliding her pedipalps deeper. She couldn't tell where would be best to direct her attention, not like how Lace had known to do with her, but she could test and see. The top seemed to be sensitive -- she'd gotten Lace to react to that earlier, hadn't she? -- so she pressed upwards, rubbing and playing around just behind the slit.

Lace's movements stuttered then, and for a lurching second Hornet thought she had misjudged, before Lace let out a low moan and tightened her grip. "A quick learner, aren't you, little spider?" She lowered her face down close, and left a kiss on Hornet's horns, with a pleased little purr like a smile.

Her other hand crawled and dance down Hornet's side until it reached her legs, and Hornet found herself already tensing up and widening her legs in anticipation as Lace's claws slipped under her hip and wriggled into her again. With only one hand this time, Lace changed her approach, one claws in each entrance, curling up and in. The undignified sound from Hornet's own mouth was, blessedly, muffled by Lace's thigh.

"You like that very much, don't you?" Lace jerked her claws a little harder, and the rush of sensation from it summoned another, even more undignified sound. "Oh, what a lovely thing you are."

Hornet didn't bother answering, her mouth busy, and instead rocked with the motion of Lace's body, doing her best to match it -- back to take Lace into herself, forward to press herself into Lace. She had never done this before in her life, but she would do it well, though even that thought had begun to melt away into the indistinction of the moment, punctuated by push and pull and need. She could smell nothing but Lace, feel nothing but her, see and hear nothing but her, and in that moment she could not even bring herself to find it frightening.

It had been so long, since such a thought had been anything _but_ frightening.

Hornet made one final sound as something reached a limit inside her, a burst of pleasure surpassing all the moments before, and she found herself curling inward in the strange, calm aftermath to lie nearly sideways between Lace's legs. Lace, for her part, made a soft trilling noise and stroked the length of Hornet's horns, comforting, as she continued to nudge herself against Hornet's mouth, a little slower now. 

If Lace were the sort, Hornet would call it cautious. Though, as she lay there thinking, perhaps caution was entirely warranted. The mating habits of Beasts and Wyrms, from what she understood, had one key point in common, and it was cannibalism. Even as it was, she found herself the hungriest she'd been since arriving in Pharloom. It seemed hunting would be in order, after this.

When the outstretched leg in front of her began to look a bit too much like meat, Hornet finally pulled her mouthparts back under her mask, and turned, to lie face-up in Lace's lap. She understood, in theory, how to hold back her instincts, but she saw no point in giving them any undue opportunities.

"So, little spider," said Lace, after a time. "How was that, for a first experience?"

Hornet thought on it a moment. "Strange. Exhilarating." And, with another moment: "Educational."

Lace giggled at that, high and beautiful. "Wonderful! If you'd like another lesson, some time in our future travels, I'd happily oblige."

"I may ask to hold you to that offer." Hornet nestled her cheek against Lace's waist, and let her breath hang heavy and slow.

She wouldn't sleep here, not yet, not hungry. But when she'd hunted and eaten to sate herself, perhaps she'd find another chance to lie at Lace's side, and they would linger like this again through the night.

**Author's Note:**

> I looked at a gallery of spider vaginas for this. Spiderginas, if you will.  
> (yes i know they're called epigynes this is a joke)
> 
> also honestly half this fic was an exercise in getting either of these ridiculous dramatic archaic-dialect dumbasses to say anything remotely sexy. i'm... still not sure if i got anywhere with that. *shakes hornet by the collar* loosen up. please. i'm begging. why are you like this.
> 
> other things i have looked up for this fic:  
> \- would pedipalps count as using your hands or your mouth _(the latter for hornet but possibly the former for anatomically accurate spiders)_  
>  \- why do spiders commit mating cannibalism _(a mixture of rejection/defense, misplaced hunting instinct and deliberate sacrifice apparently?? sometimes male spiders will actually feed themselves to their mates to decrease the chances of a second round with someone else, and/or to help ensure better chances for offspring by giving mom a free meal. nature is wild.)_  
>  \- how many fingers does lace have _(canonically: none)_


End file.
